Algernon Blackwood

“ There is a subtle fascination in the Muskoka air that makes each summer seem sweeter than the last. Life there is ever delightful. It appeals to the dreamer as well as to the man of action. In those vast solitudes of wood and water one is conscious of a spirit that curiously combines a careless eastern languor with the immense potential energies of the west. In Muskoka you may dream, yet not be ashamed. ”

“ It is only that the realities of life have sunk away out of sight below that far blue horizon of forest, and that the magical moonlight of those August nights brings an influence so soothing and restful that your too active spirit enters into the sweet sleep of the trees and waves, and you gather and store up, without expending it, strength for the duties that must come later. You may dream without enervating effect, for the working of the Muskoka divinity is first quieting, afterwards uplifting. ”

“ The edge of the wildness of those days has perhaps been taken off; but, even so, Muskoka is still the genuine backwoods, and you have only to carry your canoe over a few “portages,” and paddle it across a few lakes and streams to the west and north, to find yourself in the trackless and awful solitudes of a wilderness that at first frightens, that it may forever after completely fascinate you.
The settlers in the pioneer days must have had truly a lonely time of it. The soil is thinly scattered upon the surface of those ancient rocks. ”

“ Even today, the settlers say, his spirit haunts the more remote bays of Lake Joseph and Lake Rosseau, and the solitary hunter may see along shadow fall athwart his tent, when the branches are motionless in the windless night and there are no lost seagulls wandering beneath the moon. A spectral canoe has been seen by more than one backwoodsman in the lonely reaches of the Joseph River ”

“ The evening drink is the beginning and not the end of the activity. The glades are alive and moving, and the moon peeping through the tangle of branches sees graceful shifting forms where a few hours before the sunlight found only ferns and moss and eddies of fallen leaves.
And when the sun is quite down, and the stars are out, perhaps the Northern Lights will dance and flash in weird splendour round the polestar for half the night, winning wonderful reflections from the still waters and warning the watchful hunters of the approach of cold and stormy weather. ”

“ Every island today has its wharf and house, the latter being sometimes a mere camping shanty of pine-boards, and sometimes a more pretentious wooden cottage with wide encircling verandah, two storeys, boathouse, icehouse, and even brick chimneys. The heat of the Muskoka summer is always tempered with plenty of ice⁠—ice to make cooling drinks and to keep sweet the fish and perishables in the larder ”

“ The Muskoka Lakes have a charm peculiarly their own, and the summers I have spent in that invigorating atmosphere of pine forests, 800 feet above the sea, sometimes with tent and canoe, sometimes in the greater luxury of the hospitable island-homes, are certainly among the pleasantest memories of many years spent in Canada. ”

“ A safe rock has to be selected for the conflagration, lest the sparks set on fire the dry wood and destroy the beauty of the island forever. The second growth, after a forest fire, is invariably scrub-oak and small hardwood trees, which afford no shade and are not beautiful in themselves. ”

“ Everybody bathes together, and the children learn to swim and dive like fish. Rafts are made of drifting logs, and perilous journeys are made thus in bathing suits from one island to another. The young men practise all sorts of tricks in their canoes: paddling while standing upright, or purposely upsetting and climbing in again after the canoe has been shaken empty⁠—a most difficult feat. ”

“ Silently and swiftly they come over the waves, gliding if it is smooth, leaping and dancing if the wind is fresh enough to make a little sea, just like things of life, the playful, gaily dressed spirits of these endless Canadian lakes. ”

“ Only in the little valleys of this undulating territory, which never rises to the grandeur of real hills, is there any shelter or depth of earth. Poor oats, potatoes, and a few other vegetables, represent the Muskoka crops; but, on the other hand, “Muskoka mutton” is famous all over Eastern Ontario, and a most delicate and delicious dish it is, too. The farmers who have cleared enough land to furnish grazing for a flock of sheep have made both ends meet, and put by a little into the bargain. ”

“ The days are made up of picnics on land or water, camping trips into the surrounding wilderness, expeditions into the forest, visits to neighbouring islanders, fishing excursions. The men chop down trees for the immense campfires at night; the girls go out sailing, canoeing, gathering the abundance of wild fruits ”

“ All locomotion is of course by water, and every Muskoka boy and girl is a good canoeist (or soon becomes one) , from the expert who can shake his canoe empty in deep water and climb in again in fourteen seconds, to the ordinary man who can paddle three girls to Yoho P.O. for the letters in rough weather and not ship a drop.
Whatever the occupations of the day have been, everybody in the house-party meets at night round the campfire. And the campfire is a feature of the Muskoka life. ”

“ Generally in the morning, soon after breakfast, half-a-dozen men of the party, with boats and axes and ropes, have collected the floating logs or cut down the dead monsters on the mainland, and chopped them into the necessary lengths. Four big logs placed in a square form the foundations, and upon this there is built up a huge, hollow framework, tapering to a height of twelve feet, and filled with brushwood and dead branches. When all the party is assembled, someone lights the pile at the top, and it burns slowly downwards, throwing out a fierce heat and crackling, gigantic flames. ”

“ Long boards propped up against boulders form comfortable backs for most of the audience, who lie with rugs and cushions, singing songs and telling stories far into the night. Others, two and two, in canoes, float in the circle of light upon the lake. ”

“ Yoho is nearly a mile long, and nowhere more than a few hundred yards wide. It is a ridge of pine-covered rock in the far corners of Lake Josephy. On its lower end, in the rustling shade of a grove of magnificent hemlocks, a church service is held for the benefit of the islanders in the months of July and August. ”

“ The sound of the guitars and voices travels far across the water, and often attracts visitors from other islands and campfires, who hover about in their canoes and enjoy the fun and music as it were from the gallery, until the party breaks up and they turn their silent craft homewards. ”

“ In one I see two men paddling with strong, sweeping strokes, men in white duck with faces brown as the Indians. In another a boy brings two girls in light summer frocks, with faces radiant as the sunshine. ”

“ The islands in each lake were bought up in turn. Well-wooded islands, some mere little rocks of an acre, others small continents of twenty to thirty acres, that were purchased in those days for a few pounds apiece, are now worth⁠—though not intrinsically⁠—ten times as much; and with the subsequent coming of the railway and the steamers the uttermost ends of Lake Rosseau and Lake “Jo” (as it is familiarly called) are within twelve hours of Toronto, and at a cost that need terrify no one. ”

“ Besides which, there has naturally grown up among the Muskoka regulars a select order of aristocrats, whose islands are their castles, and who, consciously or unconsciously, give their tone to the entire community.
The life is, first of all, free and easy. It is an open-air life. ”